Best of Whistler 2004 Part 2

Best kids game played by adults..

Best kids game played by adults...

Spin the cellphone

It was one of those classic summer nights on the Citta’s patio, where the original group of four joined a group of three to become a group of seven, which then became a group of 10, then a group of 12 and then some. That’ll happen at Citta’s, where the patio sticks out into the Village Square like Sissy Hankshaw’s hitchhiker thumb in Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. It’s unavoidable and it draws ’em in, and before long there’s a party squished into way too many patio chairs around a nucleus of too-small tables.

From my vantage the gathering was a blend of good friends, acquaintances and a higher than normal pro-skier quotient, seeing as it was the height of summer camp season.

The drinks were flowing. The conversations were whizzing like electrons. Being the fidgety type I started spinning my cellphone on the table. Spin. Spin. I’m easily amused.

Spin. The phone slowed to a stop, the stubby antenna pointing right at a good friend of mine, who in bizarro world would be known as "Scowly," the phone’s hypnotic effect focusing his gaze.

"Guess I have to kiss you now," I joked, referring to the classic coming of age game Spin the Bottle, which has both mortified and made the night of many a junior high student over the years.

The reference resulted in a good-natured peck of the French greeting variety. Bizarro Scowly then spun the phone himself, and received a kiss from one of the other comely lasses at the table, who was then encouraged to give the phone a spin herself.

By now the spinning phone had grabbed the attention of the entire table, especially when the first girl-on-girl kiss went down. Not that it was anything worth broadcasting on the Spice Channel. This was speed kissing, spurred on by chanting and the desire to get the phone spinning again and see who else would have to kiss.

When the first guy-on-guy combo came up everyone caught their breath slightly. It looked like the end. Cool pro-skier guy had to kiss Whistler local guy who he had met approximately five minutes before the phone had started spinning. But caught up in the moment, lips met stubbly cheek and the game kept going, amped up to a fever pitch. Kiss! Spin. Kiss! Spin. Kiss!

Looking back I can’t say how long we were playing Spin the Cellphone, but let’s just say a long time. Long enough for every permutation of kiss combo in a group numbering a baker’s dozen to go down several times. Long enough for the server to get kissed several times. Long enough for your stomach to hurt the next day from laughing.

Yeah, I kissed more people that lazy hazy crazy summer night than I did through all of high school. But I’m telling you now the way I would have insisted in junior high – it was good clean fun.